Fatal Flaw
by Eve Davidson
Summary: Craig Manning talking about his tragic hero personality.


I am Craig Manning. I have broken the hearts of everyone I've come into contact with. Almost everyone. I've done this despite my positive attributes. I'm creative, smart, caring, compassionate, a gentleman. I am capable of incredible kindness. I help my step-father at his car lot. I read books to my baby sister. I've cheered up my friend Manny after someone posted a video of her drunk and flashing everyone. I told Ashley that if you love someone, you shouldn't want to change them. You should love them for who they are.

It's like this tragic hero thing. I have fatal flaws. Maybe it isn't all my fault. My father abused me emotionally and physically. My mother died when I was 11. I was diagnosed bipolar, and if it was triggered by the abuse then it was, but it is a chemical imbalance in the brain. I couldn't tell Ashley I loved her. I couldn't take Manny's childish affection. I couldn't return Ellie's feelings.

I burdened my sister with our secret meetings and when it slipped, since she was only five, she felt all the guilt a five year old would feel. Manny decorated my locker because she thought I was being "moody" and she thought she could cheer me up that way. And when she asked me if I didn't like the locker I stood right there in front of her and said, "No, Manny…it isn't my locker I don't like. It's you," I stood there and watched her face crumble and her lip start quivering and the tears start.

I lied to Ashley. I let her think she could trust me. I got Manny pregnant when I was dating her. I told Ellie I loved her and I kissed her just so she wouldn't tell Joey that I was addicted to cocaine. I beat up Joey when he was trying to help me, when he was trying to deal with my out of control behavior. I couldn't even see or hardly think while I was doing it, I just pounded the shit out of him, totally out of control. I disobeyed my father.

Despite my best intentions things can't go well for me because I don't learn from mistakes. I am doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. I'm damaged. I'm thoughtless. When Ashley needed real words and thoughts from the deep parts of my heart I joked, I laughed it off. I wouldn't let her in. When Manny overwhelmed me with her need, with her want, I couldn't be true. I told her it was her, it had always been her but I was lying.

I broke Joey's heart. I ran away from home. I lived on the streets. I didn't take my medication. I hurt him, just like my dad hurt me. Maybe it was the behavior I knew, the behavior that was deeply ingrained in me. But maybe the reasons don't matter. I am flawed. I engage in the same destructive patterns of behavior despite the consequences. My interactions with others only results in pain.

So I've been in mental hospitals and shot up with anti-psychotics. I've been alone on the streets of Toronto, walking past the fires burning in metal cans, walking past the homeless people huddled into cardboard huts. I've been to soup kitchens and rambling incoherently to anyone who would listen. I've been beaten with belts and boards and kicked and punched. I've had girls pleading with me to see the pain I've caused. I've been through withdrawals in dismal rehab beds. I've paid, and I'll keep paying.

People feel sympathy for me and they are right to. I'm fucked up. Likeable, loveable, endearing, I'm all those things. It doesn't help. It only accentuates the tragic. Like my little speech in Kwan's grade nine drama class about being only one of six billion people so what does it matter, that speech was a bit ironic. I'm selfish, and I'm very much the center of my universe. Like when Jimmy was in the hospital and I'd visit him I only talked about myself. I only cared about Jimmy insofar as his absence was effecting me. I told myself I was upset for him and worried about him but I wasn't, not really. I was worried about me and about me not having him around.

So that's it, I guess. In the tender beginning it didn't seem so bleak. I had more promise, but it just soured. It was eaten up in my actions. I am destructive.

I didn't want things to be this way. I wanted to be less of a tragic hero and more of a true protagonist, the guy everyone roots for. The guy who moves forward and incorporates things into his being. I'm just being ground into the dust by the hubris. It's great, in a way, to watch the downfall. It's slow motion, like when you're in the middle of a car crash and time slows down.


End file.
